The Tortoise and the Hare

I signed myself, husband, and four-year old daughter up for the Tortoise Trot next weekend. It's a one mile family fun run at the Blank Park Zoo. The zoo is honoring their tortoises that are turning 50 this year!

All this got me thinking about the classic story of the tortoise and the hare. Anybody who knows me would tell you that I'm not good at running. I've even been called the turtle when people see me run. Ok, let's be honest, I don't run, I jog really slowly. And my husband and daughter are both really fast - they're the hares in this story. But we all know how things turn out in the end, so I'm thinking my chances are pretty good for next weekend. Here's hoping!

And here's some animal homonyms for you!

hare - any rodentlike mammal of the genus Lepus, of the family Leporidae, having long ears, a divided upper lip, and long limbs adapted to leading.
hair - any of the numerous fine, usually cylindrical, kreatinous filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals.

boar - the uncastrated male swine.
bore - to form, make, or construct (a tunnel, mine, well, passage, etc.) by hollowing out, cutting through, or removing a core of material: to bore a tunnel through the Alps; to bore an oil well 3000 feet deep.


bee - any hymenopterous insect of the superfamily Apoidea, including social and solitary species of several families, as the bumblebees, honeybees, etc.
be - to exist or live.

ewe - a female sheep.
you - the pronoun of the second person singular or plural, used of the person or persons being addressed, in the nominative or objective case: You are the highest bidder. It is you who are to blame. We can't help you. This package came for you. Did she give you the book?
yew - any of several evergreen, coniferous trees and shrubs of the genera Taxus and Torreya, constituting the family Taxaceae, of the Old World, North America, and Japan, having needlelike or scalelike foilage and seeds enclosed in a fleshy aril.

doe - the female of the deer, antelope, goat, rabbit, and certain other animals.
dough - flour or meal combined with water, milk, etc., in a mass for baking into bread, cake, etc.; paste of bread.

fowl - the domestic or barnyard hen or rooster; chicken.
foul - grossly offensive to the senses; disguistingly loathsome; noisome: a foul smell.


And I have one more that you might find questionable, but I'm going to put it in here anyway...

lion - a large, usually tawny-yellow cat, Panthera leo, native to Africa and southern Asian, having a tufted tail and, in the male, a large mane.
lying - the telling of lies, or false statements; untruthfulness.

I realize that if you pronounce every letter in the word lying, it is distinct from lion. But if you say it with a bit of an accent, then they sound the same!

All definitions were obtained from www.dictionary.com.

Administrator of the Year Awards

A couple of weeks ago, School Administrators of Iowa hosted an awards ceremony and reception for Iowa's Administrators of the Year. The group of awardees included a superintendent, central office staffer, secondary principal,  secondary assistant principal, middle level principal and elementary principal. The ceremony was at our capitol building and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa's Department of Education Director Jason Glass graced us with their presence.

All this got me thinking about homonyms of course! I've got three to share with you today.

principal - the head or director of a school, or especially in England, a college.

principle - an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct: a person of good moral principles.

capitol - (often lowercase) a building occupied by a state legislature.

capital - the city or town that is the official seat of government in the country, state, etc.: Tokyo is the capital of Japan.

presence - the state or fact of being present, as with others or in a place.

presents - a thing presented as a gift; gift: Christmas presents.

All definitions were obtained from www.dictionary.com.